jwade8792's Blog

As I have commented on before, mystery shopping services are an effective training tool.  They are not something to be used to write someone up.  They provide an opportunity for the leasing professional to enhance their skill set.  However if a leasing professional is going to progress in their career and if they want to improve their overall scores they need to step beyond the guest card.

Where we see the most challenges in shops is usually the telephone and internet category.  Why is that?  More than likely it is a result of the lack of face to face interaction that inhibits a flowing conversation.  A flowing conversation is such a crucial element to the leasing cycle.  When we don’t have that face to face interaction then we can sometimes forget how to talk. 

You really need to visualize the person you are talking to on the phone or crafting a response email to.  Simply acquiring a phone number is simply not enough.  The first contact is more than likely your one and only opportunity to close the deal.  If you get the phone number and find out that they need a two bedroom apartment but still do not close on the apartment, can you call that a successful sales process?  That is why we have found it so crucial on our shop scoring to make sure we include the conversational piece into the equation. 

Does your company have a solid training and performance program?  If they do you know what you should do?  Hug them.  Thank them.  Support them and the program.  Continuing education is a must and it has numerous purposes for your career.  I am going to highlight 3 key ways on how continuing education is important to your career.

Reminders

We need them there is no doubt.  We forget or we have a hard time recalling items.  Many companies have a recertification program which is excellent.  Particularly on topics such as Fair Housing and sexual harassment prevention is this a must.  So don’t roll your eyes at it when it comes time to get recertified.  Reminders can save you in a pinch. 

Apartment Career Growth

Are you looking to advance your career?  Most folks are and so that is why continuing education is so important.  You may have required curriculum based on your job title but are you taking advantage of any electives that are available?  When you sign up for electives then this shows your supervisors quite a bit about you.  It shows that you are motivated and that you are a self-achiever.  These are great qualities to have as a leader and will serve you well as you progress through various job titles.

Getting along with coworkers, selling your apartment to a once-unwilling customer, solving customer service issues, creating peace among office employees…what do all of these things have in common? They all require emotional intelligence. We often speak of intelligence from an intellectual standpoint. I know facts about this subject, therefore I am intelligent. I can solve this mathematical equation, therefore I am intelligent.

But there is a difference between intellectual and emotional intelligence. Many times we can recite to a customer how many square feet the apartment is and how much money they can save every month because the appliances are gas instead of electric. But what about when a customer comes in and they don’t know what they want because they are recently divorced, they are distraught and overwhelmed and they have never had to make this kind of decision on their own before?  The square footage of an apartment seems to dim in the shadow of such a dire outlook. This is where emotional intelligence comes in. Empathy, when applied correctly, can reach the customer in a way that puts statistics and number-crunching to shame. When you can put yourself in your customer’s shoes and walk a mile in them, you not only gain a customer but a loyal customer; one that will tell all of their friends how much you cared about what they were going through and how you helped out a stranger in their time of need.

Not too long ago a really active discussion about mystery shops took place on our Facebook page.  What inspired me to post the topic was yet another conversation I had with someone who voiced their frustration over the fact that their company uses mystery shops as a firing instead of a training tool.

I cannot say this emphatically enough, mystery shops are for TRAINING and to enhance performance.  They should never be used as clubs to justify termination.  That is a complete waste of money on every level.  When is the last time you calculated the cost of employee turnover?  There are many excellent articles that help you to consider the direct and indirect costs of an employee leaving your company.  The facts plainly show it is extremely expensive!

I want to focus on the productivity end of the spectrum.  Do you think it is more productive to have an encouraged team or a discouraged one?  The answer is easy.  So why would you ever display to your team that secret shops are a standalone item only to be used to justify a quarterly review or perhaps compensation?  That is a huge fail.  If you read through the Facebook thread already, it is clearly apparent from the thoughts of these professionals that mystery shops should be a TRAINING tool.  So the scenario should go a little something like this.

Blogging is just pure fun.  I mean it!  I love the fact that I am seeing more and more property management company’s jump onboard with a plan and a set of goals when it comes to blogging.  On my personal site I wrote about what makes it easier for me to share blog posts.  That post really was very general overall and applies to everyone.  There are a couple of items that I wanted to share with you that I have found helpful for traffic, SEO and conversation.

Consistency is a solid word that digs deep into many job functions each day.  I like this aspect of the definition: “The achievement of a level of performance that does not vary greatly in quality over time.”  That rings with a nice tone doesn’t it?  Consistency can be a challenge since we have so many distractions around us that interfere with that “quality” effort we want to put forth.  However when we can make it a focus word it certainly helps us achieve the goals we want to reach. 

Often times we have numerous grandiose ideas that we want to see work.  How about a team of Nanites that can cover an apartment turn in less than 30 minutes after a moveout?  A cool idea but not one that is realistic.  Whatever ideas we come up with to make apartment operations better they need to be ones that all can be on board with and are willing to be consistent to make them produce the desired results.

Here are five points that I came up with that need to have the word “consistent” attached to it.

The Golden Fleece for most of us on our Facebook pages is interaction of some sort.  It shows that what you post is of value to your page members and it gives you a sense of accomplishment for your efforts.  There has been a lot of semantics over whether its engagement or participation though? 

I had the chance to finish reading the Brains on Fire book while I was away and they brought this same topic up.  Many of their points helped me with a clearer definition for myself.  We all start out with participation in one way or another.  People will “Like” our posts or even provide a comment or two.  That is indeed participation.  Engagement takes things to the next level.  Engagement to me is where that participation channels out to offline measures or spins into different conversations on other platforms.  Your Facebook page is a conversation tool.  It can be a meeting room so to speak.  The challenge is work hard enough and be consistent enough in order for those conversations to go from participation to engagement.

How can this apply to apartment communities?  When I asked Geno Church at is seminar on how people are the killer app would apply to our industry, he simply said it should be easier since we are dealing with people.  In Geno’s words it has been and always will be about the people we deal with.  Once that rings true with us then it becomes an easier path from participation to engagement. 

Much of the material in this post may be items you have read before from others.  In multifamily there is quite the pool of pretty amazing folks who work hard to educate us on best practices specifically regarding Facebook.  However despite the education available I am still witnessing some common mistakes taking place.  As you read this and find yourself in any of these categories I do not want you to feel bad at all.  I can’t tell you the amount of mistakes I have made along the way in learning about social media.  Making mistakes will only help us improve, so please review this post from that objective.  I am outlining today five common mistakes and also remedies that will help Facebook’s impact on multifamily.

1-      Making a Facebook Profile instead of a Facebook Page

I continue to get requests from profiles to be “friends” instead of suggestions to “like” a page.  The way this previous sentence is outlined I hope speaks for itself.  It is against Facebook’s terms of service to set up a business on a profile.  If they find out you risk losing all of your hard work.  However you cannot have a business page without a profile which lends itself to questions such as “Who should have the profile?” and “How do I separate the personal from the business?”  Both are good questions which I would like to hear from your experience what is working for you in the comment section below.  What I have recommended to property management companies is to not allow onsite staff to set up a business page through their profile.  There is still too much turnover and Facebook pages are not transferrable.  Where I have seen the most success is where perhaps a Director or Vice President or even the owner themselves have a Facebook personal profile, give access to someone in marketing to their account, have them set up the necessary business page or pages, and then perhaps give admin rights to the community manager.  There are many scenarios on how to strategically do this but the main focus is that a property management company needs to have control (I use that term loosely) over their pages.  This approach is really one of the safest.

Early in February, Facebook released numerous changes to how Facebook pages now operate.  The moment I reviewed these changes one of my first thoughts were towards the increased opportunities for building partnership marketing opportunities.  The ability to post as your page as opposed to your personal profile will have a significant impact on your brand awareness.

Up until this point when you wanted to comment on a page that you “liked” it came from your personal profile.  Now you can easily switch between your personal profile and your business page.  It took me a little bit to figure out what needed to be done to accomplish this.  Just as on your personal profile you have the opportunity to “like” various pages, with your business page you will need to “like” pages that you partner with in order to see them in your status feed and make any comments you wish.  Think of the impact now this will have.  Picture this scenario.  Kim Cory from University Village partners with Formaggio’s Pizza.  Kim now has the opportunity to post and update as University Village.  Now all the people who are fans of Formaggio’s Pizza will see University Village commenting as opposed to Kim Cory.  How do you think this will impact University Village’s brand awareness?  There would obviously be a significant difference.  Take a look at this screen capture.  The bottom image is an option that has been available from the get go.  Tagging a fan page in an update was and still is a way to create brand awareness.  The top image is part of what is new and available.  You can now post on the wall of Facebook page as your page and you can comment in like manner.

Early in January I had the unique privilege of travelling to Columbus Ohio to visit a dear friend of mine Kim Cory at University Village.  I received a warm welcome from the whole staff and it provided a wonderful opportunity to be onsite in a student housing environment which I had never experienced before.

From the moment I walked in the door it felt happy.  Sometimes I have visited properties and the tension is so bad you can cut it with a knife or it just felt kind of too “business” minded. Kind of cold and clammy. It was the exact opposite for University Village. From the office to the models adjacent to the office it all had the look and feel of happiness and excitement.  The first day I was there I was happy to be part of “Family Lunch” which is when the whole team stops and has lunch together.  Of course when the phone rings or someone came into the office, one of the team would get up and care for it.  Kim mentioned to me how much this has become a tradition for them and it really has helped draw closer as a team.  All in all the overall atmosphere and direction that Kim takes her team has had a great impact on the success of the community.